The Voices (8 page)

Laura’s stare was accusatory. ‘What’s going on, Chris?’

He slipped off the headphones and gestured at the tape machine. ‘Roger thinks that these people are dead.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Neither do I. Not yet.’

Christopher parked his car on the Archway Road and walked a short distance, over cracked paving slabs, to The Earth Exchange. Massive lorries and double-decker buses laboured their way towards Finchley, belching black smoke from shaking exhaust pipes. He turned into an open yard and approached an imposing brown-brick house ahead. Some of the windows were decorated with colourful transfers and the front door had been left half open. Christopher ascended the stairs and stepped inside. Immediately, the smell of diesel was replaced by whole-some fragrances wafting up from the vegetarian cafe below. He advanced down the shabby hallway, his heels banging loudly on the exposed floorboards, and turned
into a large, brightly lit room. He saw baskets full of pulses and grains, fruit and vegetables, and shelves stacked with cartons of tofu, soya chunks and bottles of sarsaparilla. Sitting by the till was a young woman with straggly black hair. She was wearing a skimpy white vest through which Christopher could see the shape of her small breasts and the raised dark outlines of her nipples.

‘Hi,’ she said, smiling. There wasn’t a trace of make-up on her face.

‘Hello,’ Christopher replied.

‘Nice day.’

‘Yes. It is very nice.’

He went over to a tall bookcase and glanced through the titles. They were just as he had remembered: books on Buddhism, hypnosis, tarot cards, telepathy, stone circles, astrology and ghosts. He picked up a volume by two authors who were identified on the cover as ‘professional ghost hunters’, and then consulted the index for any mention of tape machines or tape recordings, but he couldn’t find anything relevant. He continued his search, inspecting the contents pages of other books without success.

‘Can I help you?’ The young woman had emerged from behind the till. He could now see that she was wearing
a long, rustic skirt, the embroidered hem of which stopped short of her bare feet.

‘I’m looking for a book,’ Christopher replied, by a professor who claims to have made tape recordings of spirits.’ He felt slightly embarrassed by this admission and gave a nervous laugh.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said the young woman, ‘I know the one.’ When she moved, tiny bells attached to an ankle bracelet jingled. She stopped next to a carousel of books and spun it around. Standing at her side, Christopher could smell patchouli and a slight undertow of musky perspiration. ‘You must mean this.’ She handed Christopher a thick hardback.

He took it from her and momentarily their hands touched. ‘Thank you.’

She turned and sashayed back towards the till. Christopher found that her slender figure held his attention and he had to force himself to avert his gaze. He bowed his head and studied the book. The author’s name was Konstantin Raudive. There was no professorial prefix. Beneath the title,
Breakthrough,
Christopher read: ‘An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead’. Inside, he discovered some drawings of tape recorders and circuit diagrams. This was surely the book that Kaminsky had referred to.

Christopher took the book to the till. ‘Looks interesting.’

The young woman nodded. He gave her a ten-pound note and asked her if she’d read it.

‘No,’ she replied, ‘but it’s supposed to be really good. I’m more into past lives. You know, hypnosis, regression . . .’

She was obviously bored and wanted to talk, but Christopher recognized that if he delayed his departure, he would be committing himself to an entirely fraudulent conversation. His inclination to tarry had much more to do with the transparency of the young woman’s clothing than any interest he might have in her views on reincarnation. He felt annoyed with himself, guilty, but within seconds something like an alchemical process had transmuted all of his guilt into blame. If Laura had been more sexually responsive of late, then the shaded circles that showed through the young woman’s thin cotton vest wouldn’t have been nearly so distracting.

Christopher took his change and said, ‘Thanks for your help.’

‘See you around,’ the young woman replied.

He flattered himself that a fleeting shadow of disappointment had passed across her face. With his book tucked under his arm, Christopher made his way down to
the vegetarian cafe in the basement. It was entirely empty but for a hairy individual, probably no more than nineteen years of age, standing behind a serving bay of heated metal trays. Christopher bought himself a flapjack and a cup of tea, pulled a chair from beneath one of the old wooden tables and sat down to examine his purchase.

The bulk of the book consisted of transcripts. Obscure, telegraphic communications that didn’t make much sense without the explanatory notes that the author had provided. They were presented in a variety of languages with English translations. An introductory chapter detailed a range of recording techniques involving microphones, radios and diodes. Christopher read these sections with considerable interest. They were quite technical but not beyond his understanding. He then looked at the photographic plates. Dr Raudive, a balding gentleman with glasses, was shown operating tape machines, conversing with engineers or posing with his scientific collaborators. One of these was described as ‘Germany’s leading parapsychologist’. Another was a Swiss physicist. Christopher had half expected
Breakthrough
to be a sensational polemic, full of outrageous claims, but it was nothing of the sort. It was more like a treatise, restrained, meticulous and endorsed by respected members of the international academic community. Clearly, in certain circles,
the appearance of spirit voices on tape was an accepted phenomenon.

Christopher closed the book and tasted his flapjack. It was extremely good, a weighty agglomeration of oats and raisins, bound together with honey. As he chewed, his mouth filled with sweetness. He thought about the voices that he had recorded. If it were true that the speakers were spirits trying to communicate with the living, then how utterly extraordinary it was that they should have chosen to make their existence known by interfering with
his
tape machines. An alternative possibility was that the recordings were simply opportunistic: that the conditions in his studio were, for whatever reason, favourable and that the spirits had no special interest in him or his family. Or perhaps choice and intention were entirely irrelevant in this context? Perhaps the tape machine had simply captured random phrases floating in the ether?

Just thinking about these questions made him feel light-headed.

Yet, he had to concede, there was nothing random about the phrase ‘Come to me, Faye’. If, as Christopher was slowly coming to accept, this was what the English voice had actually said, then quite clearly he, the spirit, had demonstrated knowledge of at least one of the house’s occupants.

Christopher thought about Laura. She had perceived the communication as sinister. Indeed, she had become quite upset. When he had challenged her, she hadn’t been very forthcoming. ‘I don’t like it,’ was all that she had had to say. Later, that night, she had been distinctly moody, and when they were in bed together, and Christopher had tried to reach out to her, she had turned her back on him.

The basement door opened and two people entered – a couple, dressed identically in flared maroon trousers and yellow T-shirts. They were evidently regulars and engaged the youth in a conversation about the food in the heated trays. It was a curiously solemn exchange.

Christopher noticed a discarded newspaper on an adjacent table. A partially exposed headline piqued his curiosity, but when he investigated further he found that the story was, in fact, quite dull, so he turned to the arts pages. The name Simon Ogilvy seemed to leap out at him. His friend was mentioned, along with Oliver Knussen and Peter Maxwell Davies, in an article on ‘highlights to look out for’ in the coming prom season.

A distinctive voice . . . innovative harmonies . . . exceptional command of orchestral resources.

Every compliment Simon collected seemed to bespatter Christopher’s own achievements with ordure. Christopher yearned for such praise, intelligent audiences
and meaningful plaudits. But it would never happen. Not now. Christopher cast the newspaper aside and picked up
Breakthrough.
The dust jacket was silver and decorated with a stylized wave pattern. He stared at the pattern for so long he experienced the illusion of movement. An idea had been taking shape in his mind, its constituent elements emerging from an inner vacancy and gradually coalescing into something concrete and intelligible. The voices of the dead could be incorporated into a piece of electronic music. Instantly, the scope and structure of the work were revealed to him: a major undertaking, with extended movements, a kind of anti-requiem, in which instead of the living addressing the dead, their roles would be reversed and the dead would address the living. The boldness of the concept made his heart quicken. He hadn’t felt so inspired in years and he imagined his composition provoking controversy, heated debate. He would be invited to speak on radio programmes, just as he had in the past, and the music critics would refer to him once more as the ‘English Stockhausen’. It was such a good idea, and bound to attract interest from all quarters. He could barely contain his excitement.

On returning home, Christopher marched down the hall-way and into the kitchen. Faye was in her highchair, foraging through raisins piled on a saucer. When she saw her father enter, she rocked backwards and forwards, pointed and said, ‘Da-da.’ Christopher turned to share the child’s reaction with his wife and froze. Laura was perched on a stool, reading a magazine and about to bite into a chocolate biscuit. What
had
she done to herself? Their eyes met and her expression darkened. ‘You don’t like it,’ she said tersely.

Her hair, with its glossy waves and carefully positioned curls, had been shorn off, leaving only a short, spiky fleece that made her face seem much larger.

‘It’s not that I don’t like it,’ said Christopher, attempting to conceal his true feelings. ‘It’s just . . . I really liked your hair the way it was.’

Laura bit a corner off her biscuit. ‘I felt like a change. It’s been so hot lately, and I was getting fed up with having to fiddle around with the tongs every morning. Chris,
do
stop looking at me like that!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’ll grow back, you know.’

‘Yes, I know.’

Laura put her magazine down next to the biscuit tin. Christopher registered the title –
Spare Rib.
On the cover
was a black-and-white photograph of two women holding guitars. One of them had her hair completely hidden beneath an elaborate headscarf and the other wore her hair very short – like Laura’s. A green banner that sliced diagonally across the lower right-hand corner of the page announced: ‘Rape Crisis Centre Opens –
Spare Rib
Special Report’. When Laura realized that her husband was studying the cover of her magazine, she pushed it beneath a copy of the
Listener.
After swallowing the remains of her biscuit, she said, ‘Henry called.’

‘What did he want?’

‘He didn’t say.’

Christopher went over to Faye, bent down and kissed her on the head. She offered him a raisin, holding it up with her chubby hand. Christopher took it from her and said, ‘Ta.’ The child repeated the syllable, extending the vowel, and then adopted a curiously coy expression. ‘What?’ Christopher asked. ‘What’s the matter?’ She clapped her hands and started to rock backwards and forwards again.

Laura sighed and slid off the stool. She picked up her empty mug and carried it over to the sink, the loose heels of her sandals slapping against the floor tiles. After turning the tap on she rinsed the mug in a stream of water and placed it upside down on the draining board. Looking
out of the window, she said, ‘More good weather. We must get the garden done.’

‘Yes.’

Laura turned the tap off and dried her hands on a tea towel. ‘I’ll talk to Sue.’

‘Who?’

‘Sue. The garden designer I met. Remember?’

‘You could get an estimate, I suppose. I’m not sure it would be wise to start another big project. Not just yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘We’re not exactly flush at the moment.’

‘She won’t be expensive.’

‘OK. See what she thinks. I’m going upstairs.’

‘OK. Don’t forget to call Henry.’

‘No. I won’t.’

Christopher was breathless by the time he reached the second-floor landing. It was hotter at the top of the house, and as soon as he got into the studio he opened one of the double-glazed windows. The air, which should have been fresh, carried with it a whiff of stagnant water from the Vale of Health pond. He sat down in his swivel chair, opened
Breakthrough
and began to read, although on this occasion with greater care.

One of the recording techniques that appealed to Christopher involved making use of radio noise. A radio
could be tuned between stations and the static – the crackling rush of electrical interference found between broadcasting frequencies – could be fed directly into a tape machine. When played back, such recordings were often found to contain voices. The procedure struck Christopher as interesting, because the voices he had already recorded seemed to actually arise out of the background hiss of the tape. Perhaps tape hiss and radio noise, two very similar sounds, possessed common elements that could be used by spirits as the raw material for the construction of their messages. Raudive advised that each experimental session should commence with the investigator using a microphone to record the time and date, his or her name and an invitation for ‘unseen friends’ to manifest on the tape. Questions could be asked, providing each question was followed by a pause for answers. Tape speed could be set at either three and three-quarter or seven and a half inches per second, although some researchers (the name Friedrich Jürgenson was cited) favoured seven and a half inches per second for ‘faster’ voices. Much was made of the unusual rapidity of spirit speech, a phenomenon that Christopher had not, as yet, encountered. Rerecording communications at least five times was recommended to improve clarity. Christopher thought that he could achieve superior results using filters.